[python] Converting NumPy array into Python List structure?

How do I convert a NumPy array to a Python List (for example [[1,2,3],[4,5,6]] ), and do it reasonably fast?

tolist() works fine even if encountered a nested array, say a pandas DataFrame;

my_list = [0,1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1,0]
my_dt = pd.DataFrame(my_list)
new_list = [i[0] for i in my_dt.values.tolist()]

print(type(my_list),type(my_dt),type(new_list))

The numpy .tolist method produces nested lists if the numpy array shape is 2D.

if flat lists are desired, the method below works.

import numpy as np
from itertools import chain

a = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
print type(a), len(a), a
npa = np.asarray(a)
print type(npa), npa.shape, "\n", npa
npa = npa.reshape((3, 3))
print type(npa), npa.shape, "\n", npa
a = list(chain.from_iterable(npa))
print type(a), len(a), a`

c = np.array([[1,2,3],[4,5,6]])

list(c.flatten())